The [floatMenu] command.

Introduction

The floatMenu command lets you create and manipulate floating menus in Alpha.
Floating menus are like floating palettes which reproduce the contents of any menu in Alpha: for any item in the menu, there is a corresponding button in the floating palette, and clicking on the button is equivalent to selecting the item in the menu. In the rest of this page, the expressions palette or floating menu are synonymous.

Synopsis

The formal syntax of the [floatMenu] command is:

floatMenu subcommand ?options?

The possible subcommands are described below. Depending on the subcommand, some options may be specified.

FloatMenu subcommands

The [create] subcommand

This subcommand creates a floating menu from an existing menu. It accepts a wide variety of options. The complete syntax is:

    floatMenu create -menu menuToken [(-align|-height|-width|-left|-top|-max|-interspace) val] \
         [-name winname] [-dynamic (0|1)] [-visible (0|1)]

The command returns a token used in the other subcommands to uniquely identify the floating menu. This token must not be confused with the token of the menu with which the floating palette is associated.
The possible options are described in the Floating menu options section below. By default, a floating window is made visible when it is created unless the -visible option was specified with value 0. The -menu is required on creation.

The [delete] subcommand

This subcommand lets you delete a floating menu. This is equivalent to closing the floating window with a mouse click in the Close box. The syntax is:

    floatMenu delete token

The [find] subcommand

This subcommand lets you find the floating palette associated with a given menu. The syntax is:

    floatMenu find menuToken

If there is a floating palette associated with the menu specified in the menuToken argument, the command returns the palette's token. Otherwise it raises an error. This command can be useful to test the existence of a floating window.

The [hide] subcommand

This subcommand lets you hide a floating menu. The syntax is:

    floatMenu hide token

This subcommand is a convenience: it is equivalent to [floatMenu set] invoked with -visible 0 argument.

The [list] subcommand

This subcommand returns a list of the tokens corresponding to the currently existing floating menus. Each time a new floating menu is created, its token is appended at the end of the list, so this list is ordered from the oldest to the newest float. The syntax is:

    floatMenu list

The [move] subcommand

This subcommand lets you reposition a floating menu on the screen. The syntax is:

    floatMenu move token left top

where left and top designate the position of the upper left corner of the float in screen coordinates.

The [refresh] subcommand

This subcommand lets you refresh the buttons of an already existing floating menu. The syntax is:

    floatMenu refresh token

The [set] subcommand

This subcommand lets you get or set several properties attached to a menu item. The syntax can take two forms:

    floatMenu set token option
    floatMenu set token option value ?option value...?

In the first form the command returns the current value of the specified option. In the second form, it lets you set the value of one or several options.
The possible options are described in the Floating menu options section below.
Note that it is not possible to reset the menu attached to a floating palette, i-e the -menu option is not accepted in the second form of this subcommand.

The [show] subcommand

This subcommand is the opposite of the [hide] subcommand. It lets you display an existing floating menu if it is hidden.

    floatMenu show token

This subcommand is a convenience: it is equivalent to [floatMenu set] invoked with -visible 1 argument.

The [top] subcommand

This subcommand gets or sets the topmost floating menu. The syntax is:

    floatMenu top 
    floatMenu top token

In the first form, it returns the token of the topmost floating palette or an empty string if there is none. In the second form, it brings the float corresponding to the token argument on top of the others.

Floating menu options

The [floatMenu create] and [floatMenu set] commands accept options to set some attributes of the floating menus. The options are explained below.
Note that all the options can be set on creation with the [floatMenu create] command, but only the following options can be modified with [floatMenu set]: -dynamic, -name, -visible, -width.
Here is the description of the various options:

the -attr option lets you specify some attributes concerning the aspect of the floating window. See the possible values below. The default value is 0.
the -columns option lets you specify the maximum number of columns. The default value is 1.
the -dynamic option lets you specify whether the floating menu should be updated automatically whenever the corresponding menu is modified. The possible values are 0 and 1 (which is the default). If this option is set to 0, you can still update the float menu programmatically using the [floatMenu refresh] command.
the -height option lets you specify the height of the items in the float (not to be confused with the height of the float window itself).
the -interspace option lets you specify an extra vertical margin which will be inserted to separate the items from each other. The default value is 0.
the -left option lets you specify the x-coordinate of the upper-left corner of the float in screen coordinates.
the -max option lets you specify the maximum number of items. Setting to 0 means that there is no maximum. The default value is 0.
the -menu option lets you specify the token of the menu which will be turned into a floating palette. Its value is a token corresponding to a valid already existing menu: typically this menu token is obtained with the [menuRef create] command. With the [floatMenu create] command, this argument is required.
the -name option lets you specify a name for the floating window. It is written in the title bar of the window. If this option is not specified when the floating menu is created, the name of the menu is used as a default. In order to have no title in the title bar, specify an empty string.
the -top option lets you specify the y-coordinate of the upper-left corner of the float in screen coordinates.
the -visible option lets you get or set the visibility of the floating menu. By default, a floating menu is made visible when it is created: this can be changed with the -visible option set to 0 in the [floatMenu create] command.
the -width option lets you specify the width of the float.

The possible values for the -attr option are additive values among the following:

No Attributes	0
Resizable Window	1
No Vert Scrollbar	2
No Auto Hide Scrollbar	4
No Close Button	6
No Title Bar	16

Hooks

There are two hooks named floatHook and unfloatHook which are called respectively when the [floatMenu create] and [floatMenu delete] commands are invoked.
The floatHook proc is invoked when the floating window has been created in memory but before it is attributed its token: so, at this point, the new float would not be listed by the [floatMenu list] command.
The unfloatHook proc is invoked when the floating window has been disposed of. At this point, the floating menu token is no longer valid.

Examples

See examples of use in the test file for the [floatMenu] command located in the application's bundle: floatMenu_test.tcl.

Last updated 2019-10-17 13:29:28